The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 58 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during August, with all but a half-dozen coming from the Idaho National Laboratory, according to the latest figures available on its public website.
The data indicate the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) continues to experience its busiest year since reopening in 2017, after being offline for about three years due to an underground radiation leak from a ruptured waste drum in February 2014.
During the first two-thirds of this calendar year, WIPP is roughly doubling its numbers from 2022, according to the data.
In the first eight months of 2022, WIPP received 159 shipments, including only 25 in August of that year. By contrast, it has received 327 shipments for the first two-thirds of 2023.
With one month remaining in fiscal 2023, WIPP has received 425 shipments. During the first 11 months of fiscal 2022, the facility received 220 shipments.
WIPP shipments have been on an uptick since last October when workers started emplacing waste in Panel 8. Unlike Panel 7, which was left contaminated by the February 2014 accident, workers don’t need to wear nearly as much personal protective gear in the new panel.
By the end of this calendar year, WIPP crews should start commissioning the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System, which should triple underground airflow to about 540,000 cubic feet per minute.
Of the August 2023 shipments, 52 came in from Idaho, four from the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee and one each from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
